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The concluding chapter in a novel is always brief, though seldom so short as the world would have it.  In a tale like this, the “winding up” must be proportionately contracted.  We have scarcely a claim to so many lines as the formal novelist may occupy pages, in the distribution of poetic justice, and the final grouping of his characters into that effective tableau upon which, at last, the curtain gracefully descends.  We, too, may be all the briefer, inasmuch as the reader has doubtless anticipated the little we have to say.  It amounts, then, to this:—­Within two years after the fearful event which we have just recorded, an alliance had drawn together, in nearer and dearer union, the inmates of Gray Forest and Newton Park.  Rhoda had given her hand to young Mervyn, of ulterior consequences we say nothing—­the nursery is above our province.  And now, at length, after this Christmas journey through somewhat stern and gloomy scenery, in this long-deferred flood of golden sunshine we bid thee, gentle reader, a fond farewell.

THE END

[Transcriber’s note:  “Tate-a-Tate” is [sic] twice in the original book.]